DC Adventures Log 4: Before I Kill You, Mr. Aquaman…

In our last episode, Bad Medicine, Part 2:  Badder Medicine, Team Lex dumped the Secret Six into the Hobbs River. Free falling, Abra Kadabra teleported himself and Thomas Weston into the Lexcorp Tower’s Olympic Pool.  As fate would have it, Kadabra and Weston splashed down on top of Lex Luthor in the midst of his swim routine.  After berating Weston for putting Venom on the streets of Metropolis as a party drug, Lex invited Kadabra to his office to increase his pay, congratulate him on how fast he solved the case (Team Lex had been time travelling, so Weston was dropped off in Lexcorp Towers minutes after the group got their assignment) and attempted to strategize ways to deal with Booster Gold when he would inevitably turn on Lex.  After the talk, however, Lex’s initial impression that Kadabra is a grandstanding fool was reconfirmed, and Lex sent him away with a promise to replace Kadabra’s ruined cravat.

When Team Lex returned to the 99th floor of Lexcorp towers, they were introduced to a new member:  Fire.  Unfortunately, the team had time travelled back twelve hours and were exhausted from a long night’s work.  They returned to their warm beds that their twelve-hour ago selves had left minutes before, leaving Fire to hang out with herself in the den.

When the group woke up, they were informed by Mercy Graves that, since they had taken care of their last assignment so fast, that they had the rest of the day off.  Booster tried to contact Rip Hunter, but found the connection was down.  Abra Kadabra went to a local burn ward and healed the burn victims faces, leaving trademark gigantic wax mustaches as part of his new “Kadabra Kares” program.  The rest of the team went out patrolling and found Crazy Quilt shaking an old woman down.  Harley Quinn slapped Crazy Quilt and knocked him out cold.  Team Lex turned Crazy Quilt in, but the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit berated them for wasting their time and had the team bring him to the normal police, who barely took notice.

The next day, Mercy prepped the team on their next assignment.  Black Manta’s underwater lair had been located and the group was to flush him out.  The players journeyed to Black Mantas lair, but, when they got there, a school of EMP Eels killed the power in their submarine.    As Booster Gold pushed the sub into Black Manta’s hangar, a gigantic octopus crawled out of a crevice and squeezed the moorings of the crippled sub.

After fighting off the octopus and the eels, Team Lex entered the Lair’s hangar and the Machine Shop beyond.  After they walked in, the door back sealed shut.  A television monitor slid down from the ceiling.  On it, Black Manta’s leering oval helmet taunted them:

“Aquaman!  If you are listening to this, you must be a bigger fool than I take you for.  My undersea sanctum is especially built to defend against Atlantean attacks.  You may have met my pet EMP Eels outside, and decided to use them against me.  You’d be wasting your time, though.  Because my anti-telepathy device should be activating right… now.

You’ll notice the slight ringing in your ears.  That’s because I’m not in close proximity to it, so I amplified it many times.  If exposed to it for a long time, it could do serious brain damage, but not as much as when I suck all of the oxygen out of the room.

You have little more than a minute before you run out of air, but to be certain that you don’t devise a way to get out of my deathtrap, let’s waste your time with a few ‘toys’, shall we?”

Laser Guns swivel out of the walls. Robots pop out of the ground and spinning blades of death slice through everything in their path.  As soon as a player investigate the walls, the message continues:

“Oh, and I wouldn’t advise bothering to punch yourself through the walls.  They’re reinforced with Prometheum, which I’m sure is beyond your brutish capabilities.  In fact, I’m willing to give you a sporting chance.  I’ll supply you with the control panel.  Feel free to waste the last moments of your life learning C++ and rewriting the security protocol.  HAHAHAHAHAHHA!”

Hourman rushed to the panel, and, typing at ludicrous speed, bypassed the initial security parameters.  He was then prompted with a querry:  ‘Type in four colors’.  When he did so, a message returned to him saying that one of the colors was correct, but not in the right space.  Hourman then used his power of precognition to see that he would type in the correct code in two seconds, then typed in the correct code.  The monitor slid down again, with this message:

 “Oh!  Crafty aren’t you.  I have to assume that you are either not Aquaman, or the simpering idiot didn’t feel that he could tackle me alone.  Well, congratulations, you’ve unlocked the door.  It’s possible that you would have preferred it remain locked, though.  I’m sure my gigantic Monitor Salamander is happy that it’s open, though!”

After handling the giant monitor salamander, whom wasn’t very interested in the heroes once it realized they posed a challenge, Team Lex explored further into Black Manta’s confines.  A slow moving walkway lead them past rec rooms, through a trophy room and into the dining hall.  At the far end of the hall, hunched over a bowl of cereal sat Black Manta, who had his wet suit and giant helmet on and nothing but a pair of boxing shorts over his legs.  Black Manta, surprised by Team Lex, flipped the table over.  Cereal and milk sprayed everywhere as Manta made a run for the far door… but found himself trapped when Team Lex overrode the door’s security.

Black Manta, now trapped, apologized because he thought that they were going to fight the next day and he hadn’t finished getting the kinks out of his security system.  When Team Lex asked too many details over what they should do when they got together tomorrow, a confused Black Manta contacted Calculator… which is also Team Lex’s contact.

Meanwhile, the dining hall filled up as Black Manta was joined by a confused Metallo and Livewire (both of whom Black Manta was working with in the player’s first adventure).  It’s at this point that a desperate Skeets ported in, flew to Booster and said, “There’s something terribly wrong!  My historical archives are reediting every second and, and Rip Hunter…”  Bzooweeoovzip!

Continue on to DC Adventures Log 5:  Super Friends!